Random News: May 21, 2025

DISCLAIMER: Zak's Random News is very random and doesn't cover many things, and not everything may be accurate, because I'm just some guy. Go find a real news source.

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Good morning. It’s May 21, 2025, and it’s a Wednesday. So far it’s a very foggy morning here by the beach. I can barely see across my street. I like it.




• Let’s jump right in.
• Late yesterday, U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy ruled that U.S. officials must retain custody and control of migrants apparently removed to South Sudan in case he orders that their removals were unlawful.
• Yup. The Dump administration has begun deporting people from Myanmar and Vietnam to South Sudan — despite a court order restricting removals to other countries.
• Surprise, surprise.
• Dumpy has already begun this next phase of his cruel action plan. A flight carrying a dozen people, including citizens of Myanmar and Vietnam, landed in South Sudan yesterday.
• This happened despite a previous court order that bars the US government from deporting migrants to third countries without being given "meaningful opportunity" to challenge such removals.
• Judge Murphy has ordered U.S. officials to appear at an emergency hearing today to answer questions about their violation of the court order.
• And why is Dump sending immigrants to countries other than their own places of origin? Why is he sending Asian people to war-torn South Sudan in Africa?
• It may be even worse than it seems. The Vietnamese man's spouse emailed his lawyer and said that the group of around 10 other individuals who were believed to have been deported to Africa included nationals of Laos, Thailand, Pakistan, and Mexico.
• Let’s move on to some breaking news.
• Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) died this Wednesday morning. He was 75.
• Last month, Connolly had announced that he would not seek reelection and would soon step down from his leadership position on the powerful House Oversight Committee. He’d said that his esophageal cancer — a diagnosis he shared in November — had returned.
• This is obviously sad… but it’s also concerning from the standpoint of the razor-thin margins in the House. Hopefully Virginia can fast-track Connolly’s replacement.
• Moving on.
• Dumpy went to Capitol Hill yesterday to threaten Republican congressional holdouts to support his ridiculous budget bill.
• The massive tax and immigration bill, which is critical to Dump’s second-term evil plans, narrowly passed the House Budget Committee on Sunday but faces continued resistance from both Republican moderates and GOP hard-liners concerned about spending.
• Obviously, every Democrat is opposed to this bullshit.
• But even as of this morning, House Speaker Mike Johnson is facing a last-minute rebellion from conservatives on this megabill.
• See, blue-state Republicans know they might as well resign the moment they vote for this thing. They’ll never be re-elected after gutting Medicare and destroying social programs in order to pay for the wealthy to get a big tax break at the expense of everyone else.
• “I think actually we’re further away from a deal because that SALT cap increase, I think, upset a lot of conservatives,” said Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD this morning, referring to the state-and-local-tax deduction.
• On a related side note, I want to briefly talk about Medicaid, the public health system that’s being slashed to pay for Dumpy’s tax breaks to the wealthy.
• Who receives Medicaid help?
• 37% of the recipients are children. 9% are 65 or over. And just 6% of the Medicaid recipients were not working long term — which is only 3% of the total receiving Medicaid benefits.
• And 0% of them are undocumented immigrants. Medicaid is not offered to them at the federal level.
• Dump’s budget negatively impacts everyone except the rich. For now, moving on.
• Let’s move on.
• In their fury over the Dump administration's charges against Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ), House Democrats are planning to ramp up oversight visits to ICE facilities.
• "Members are getting increasingly angry and frustrated at the overreach, and now one of our members has been singled out for intimidation," said House Administration Committee ranking member Joe Morelle (D-NY).
• Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH), a moderate, said, "Democrats should be all over oversight. We have to double down. We have to do more."
• Several House Democratic groups have discussed organizing oversight visits to ICE facilities during the next week's recess. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) said that "many of us were going to go visit anyway, and we're going to move those visits as soon as we can."
• If you need a reminder: Rep. McIver was charged with two counts of assaulting law enforcement officers in connection with a scuffle she and other House Democrats had with ICE officials in New Jersey earlier this month.
• But the migrant holding facility is being operated by a private prison company without the proper permitting. And congressional reps are required by law to have oversight and perform inspections of such facilities.
• Moving on with some info from the Health Desk.
• Yesterday, Dumpy announced a major new policy shift saying that annual COVID-19 shots for healthy younger adults and children will no longer be routinely approved.
• The Food and Drug Administration laid out new requirements for access to yearly COVID shots. They’ll only offer them to adults 65 and older as well as children and younger adults with at least one health problem that puts them at higher risk.
• The upcoming changes raise questions for people who may still want a COVID-19 booster but don’t clearly fit into one of the categories.
• Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, asked, “Is the pharmacist going to determine if you’re in a high-risk group?. The only thing that can come of this will make vaccines less insurable and less available.”
• Who can you blame for this, beyond Dump? The FDA’s new guidance comes from Health Secretary and disgusting anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
• Fucking asshole.
• In other news…
• Dump also announced yesterday that the government will move forward on construction of a multibillion-dollar “Golden Dome” missile defense system that will use a constellation of satellites and space-based weapons to intercept ballistic attacks on the United States.
• He thinks the system could be operational within three years, before the end of his second term and has already allocated $25 billion in the federal budget toward the construction of the Golden Dome in the massive budget bill that Republicans in Congress aim to pass in the coming weeks.
• But that’s just start starting cost. Earlier this month, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that deploying and operating just the space-based interceptors of the new missile defense system could cost anywhere from $161 billion to $542 billion over the next two decades.
• Jesus.
• Let’s move on.
• Notice how you’ve barely heard anything about Elon Musk in the past month or so?
• That’s because he’s a walking cancer to politicians. Dumpy used to mention him every few moments, and then abruptly shut him out of all communications.
• Dump saw the polling numbers, where Elon draws negative reactions across wide swaths of the American populace.
• Well, yesterday Elon said that he’ll be spending less on political campaigns.
• “I’m going to do a lot less in the future,” Musk said. Asked why, he responded that “I think I’ve done enough.”
• We do too.
• Musk spent at least $250 million supporting Dump in the presidential campaign. He took credit for helping Dump return to the White House. Dumpy didn’t like that either.
• And now, The Weather: “The White Cliffs” by Mark Pritchard & Thom Yorke
• Rest in peace to actor George Wendt, whom you almost certainly know from his role as Norm on the beloved ‘80s sitcom “Cheers.” He died yesterday at 76.
• Wendt earned six Emmy nods in the supporting actor in a comedy series category through his tenure as a main cast member across the 11-season run of “Cheers.” 
• I also loved his appearances on SNL along with Chris Farley, Mike Myers, and Robert Smigel in the “Chicago Superfans” sketch. Da Bears.
• Fun Fact: Wendt was the uncle of SNL and “Ted Lasso” star Jason Sudeikis.
• From the Sports Desk… we’re in the Conference Finals of the basketball and hockey playoffs.
• In the NBA: the Thunder beat the Timberwolves 114-88, taking a 1-0 lead in the Western Conference finals.
• In the NHL: the Panthers pounded the Hurricanes 5-2, grabbing a 1-0 lead in the East finals.
• Today in history… Daniel Defoe is imprisoned on charges of seditious libel (1703). Lawrence, Kansas is captured and burned by pro-slavery forces (1856). The American Red Cross is established by Clara Barton in Washington, D.C. (1881). FIFA — the Fédération Internationale de Football Association — is founded in Paris (1904). Charles Lindbergh touches down at Le Bourget Field in Paris, completing the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean (1927). Bad weather forces Amelia Earhart to land in a pasture in Derry, Northern Ireland, and she thereby becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean (1932). Sada Abe is arrested after wandering the streets of Tokyo for days with her dead lover's severed genitals in her handbag (1936). Physicist Louis Slotin is fatally irradiated in a criticality incident during an experiment with the demon core at Los Alamos National Laboratory (1946). Alabama Governor John Malcolm Patterson declares martial law in an attempt to restore order after race riots break out (1961). Transamerica Corporation agrees to sell United Artists to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for $380 million after the box office failure of the 1980 film ‘Heaven's Gate’ (1981). After 30 seasons Johnny Carson hosted his penultimate episode and last featuring guests — Robin Williams and Bette Midler — of ‘The Tonight Show’ (1992). Radio broadcaster Harold Camping predicted that the world would end on this date (2011).
• May 21 is the birthday of prison reformer Elizabeth Fry (1780), painter Henri Rousseau (1844), volcanologist Giuseppe Mercalli (1850), physician/businessman Armand Hammer (1898), singer-songwriter Fats Waller (1904), author Harold Robbins (1916), actor Raymond Burr (1917), physicist/activist Andrei Sakharov (1921), Australia prime minister Malcolm Fraser (1930), singer-songwriter Ronald Isley (1941), singer-songwriter Bill Champlin (1947), singer-songwriter Leo Sayer (1948), actor/writer/politician Al Franken (1951), actor Mr. T (1952), drummer Stan Lynch (1955), actor Judge Reinhold (1957), serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer (1960), rapper The Notorious B.I.G. (1972), actress Fairuza Balk (1974), NFL player Ricky Williams (1977), singer-songwriter Gotye (1980), and NFL player Josh Allen (1996).

Okay then. I’m outta time. Enjoy your day.